John Copley: ‘Opera audiences are being short-changed’

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Take a straw poll of senior British operagoers and it’s a safe bet that John Copley would come out top of the list of favourite directors. Always faithful to the spirit of the piece in question, never aiming to shock or provoke, blessed with exceptional craft and a gift for drawing the best out of singers, he represents a lost golden age when nobody on stage shot up heroin or sat on the lavatory. His shows have another supreme virtue – audiences like them, and they can be brought back year after year without losing their appeal. Who cares that a few exigent critics and intellectuals find them conservatively superficial and decorative?